Ok so you have this really great digital image, you want to make it big..... Really big. So you send your image to the local lab and well it's big but it just doesn't look as good as it did when it was small? What happened? Why did it loose all it's great "small image appeal"?
The answer is resolution. If you are a typical digital camera user, you probably shoot with a point and shoot digital camera that is around 5-6, maybe 7 megapixels in size. These are great cameras to be sure. But when it comes to making that really big image, you know the wall size print. You are going to come up short on resolution.
Camera manufacturers are playing the odds here. The average person out there will shoot images and make 4x6 inch prints. They may want to enlarge a few of those prints however, most enlargements do not go past 8x10 or 8x12 in size. There are the few that will make an 11x14 or 11x17 size prints. A standard 7 mega pixel point and shoot digital camera will be able to do a decent job with this. BUT, if you want to go truely big, you are among the very few, and camera manufacturers know this. That's why these camera's as well as most Pro Cameras in 35 mm size just can't do an image that size well. Fortunately there's help.
What we are talking about here is doing what is called "resing up", increasing the size of an original image to larger than average sizes. 30 x40 inches and more. We routinely do this as professional photographers. One of the best ways to do this is to use a resizing program. For this you will need to use a program like Photoshop. It has a great resizing function in it that will help you get there. Is there something better? Yep.
When you take a digital picture, you are basically doing math. Your image is stored in binary code of 1's and 0's and then filtered and run through a series of mathmatical adjustments ( in split seconds ) to allow you to see your image on the veiw finder just after you have taken the picture. The image and all it's calculations are then stored on your media card before being transferred to you computer for further mathmatical adjustments. The technology behind this is mind boggling. If you boil it all down though, you are really looking at a mathmatical equation that all adds up to equal your favorite sunset picture from your trip to Hawaii or a picture of your very best friend "sparky" the family dog.
Now you really like this photo, you decide you want to preserve this incredible equation forever in a wall print. You want to make it Big..... Really Big. To do this you will have to apply an alogrithm to the image in Photoshop or in some other way. Most professional labs will "res up" an image for you to make it big using a standard program. These are OK but not the best. This is why the result of simply sending it to your lab didn't quite make it.
In years past ( the days of film ) if you wanted to make something big, really big, you needed to start with a really big piece of film. Otherwise the image would simply become grainy and lose a ton of detail. Today we can simply do a little math in Photoshop or in a supplimental program to simulate that bigger piece of film. To do this we recommend a product from OnOne software company that plugs straight into Photoshop. It retails at about $150 and does an amazing job of "resing up" your images. According to the company you can enlarge an image as much as 800x it's original size with little or no loss in detail. What does this mean? Well if you have a 4x6 image you could effectively make that image into roughly a 10x13 foot wall print, WOW!
The program is called Genuine Fractals and you can download the program by clicking here for the On One website. Now we realize that most of our readers will never enlarge their images to a 10 foot print. If however, if you decide to make a 16x20 or 20x30 inch print, which in recent years has become a popular home decorating tool, this is a great way to do it.
Original image 400x80 Jpg logo image
Photoshop Bicubic Enlargement @ 425% increase in size
Genuine Fractals Enlargement @ 425% increase in size
So how does it all work? Well in the simplest terms the alogrithm applied to the image, uses each pixel as a road map to enlarge your image. It will create new colors, red, green, blue, blacks and whites and everything in between placing them in the spaces created by enlarging the image. Each new pixel that is created will also be sharpen and oriented to match its surrounding pixels so that when the image is complete there are no spaces and no loss in sharpness or color quality. If all that is too confusing, think of it this way. Say you have a small barrel of water packed with apples floating on top. Some apples are green, others are red. Now you empty the barrel into an larger tub of water. The apples slowly begin to float apart because of the added space. You liked your barrel of water packed with apples, so you click your mouse and apply an alogrithm, magically new apples would appear. They would look exactly like the ones in the smaller barrel, color, shape, shadow, highlight etc. except they would be twice the size of the originals and completely fill the new tub of water.
We hope that if you are serious about making wall art for your house, that you use a program like Genuine Fractiles. You will get a truely great piece of art to display, rather than a fuzzy rendition of your Hawaiian sunset. Plus your friends and family will be amazed at the detail of your images.- Aloha
